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Politics & Government

Special Council Meeting to Listen to Downtown Business Concerns

Four Geneva aldermen are trying something new in an effort to reach out to and help downtown businesses.

The city of Geneva sent notice Thursday of a special meeting of the City Council, set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, at the , 514 W. State St.

The meeting is described as "a listening session with members of the downtown retail business community on behalf of Aldermen Chuck Brown, Sam Hill, Ralph Dantino, and Craig Maladra, who represent the downtown wards."

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Dantino and Maladra represent the 5th Ward, Brown and Hill the 1st Ward.

Hill said the idea was born, appropriately, in a local business.

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"A couple of us were having a discussion over a brew at a local pub—just two of us, so it was a legal meeting—and we were talking over concerns about the downtown and shops that were closed and the business climate in general," Hill said Thursday. "You know, you can look at sales tax figures, but those are three months late, so we said, let’s open the floodgates. If we have to be more assertive in our role as aldermen, we're willing to do that."

The Open Meetings Act requires a special meeting of the City Council because the four aldermen are meeting together at the same time, Hill said.

Geneva's downtown has seen a number of vacancies in recent months, including at State and Third streets. A number of other storefronts and remain vacant as businesses struggle in tough economic times.

Recent reports from the Assessor's Office indicate the the property tax base in downtown Geneva has .

The good news is that Geneva's sales tax numbers were up last year and seem to be tracking well this year, but as Hill said, numbers don't tell the story as well as people do.

Why the open forum instead of simply sitting in on any number of Community Development Department, Chamber of Commerce or other existing meetings?

"We want to get it direct," Hill said. "The chamber is a great organization, but they don’t represent every single business because they’re not all members. So we’ve offered to speak to—and listen to—every business owner in those boundaries."

"Where it goes from there, I don’t know," he added. "We just want to be open to them. We feel it’s important. And we don’t always have a chance to sit down and just listen."

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